Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the invite-only launch for the Girls in Tech international professional development group’s first every country-wide chapter launch, known on Twitter as #GITChina. You can view the attendees’ thoughts by visiting that Twitter hashtag, or if you are in China without access to Twitter, you can view the unblocked stream here. I’m pretty much the only girl in tech without a mobile device you can read tweets on, so you won’t see much of me in the stream. The event’s main organizer, Jenny Bai, encouraged me to get involved in Girls in Tech after she saw my blog post titled “Chinese Social Media as an Educational Tool.”

Programming highlights:
Jenny Bai as a floating head on Skype as she was in New York
Beta screening of “Twittamentary” by Beijing-based documentary producer Siok Siok Tan
Unveiling of the event-specific drinks “Girls in Techila” and “Girls in Technoqila” as created by Jim Boyce with Fubar
Panel discussion on the impact of micro-blogging on women in China
After-party at Fubar
My favorite: Lady GaGa music  throughout the day programming. (Isn’t she perfect for the Girls in Tech theme?)

Key people involved in organizing:
@WildPixels @christinelu @isaac @acrosstheC @eIyssa @anitahuang_sh @beijingdaze @sinotechian @reneecolette @sriramkri @sioksiok @frankyu @jennybai @POPOEVER (Let me know if I missed anyone.)

Below are my highlights from the panel discussion on micro-blogging, moderated by Siok Siok Tan, with speakers Cindy Jiang, Anita Huang, Loretta Chang, and Scarlett Li.

Cindy Jiang started the first ever video blog on Internet entrepreneurship in China. She said that she has interviewed about 70 people for her blog so far, and only 2 have been women.

Siok Siok Tan mentioned that micro-blogging in different languages creates different universes because people tend to think and talk about certain topics more in certain languages.

An audience member asked about what panelists consider a breach of privacy when it comes to sharing information via social media, using the example of a viral video of a woman freaking out after she missed her plane flight. Loretta Wang, who is a journalist, said she thinks the privacy breach occurs when someone films someone without their consent then puts the content online. Whether she shares that video after it is online has more to do with its news value than privacy breaching.

Scarlett Li, who works in pop music, explained exactly how profoundly the Internet has affected music popularity. She said that you used to be able to have a top 10 list of songs, and everyone in the country would watch those top ten, but now with the Internet, we need to have a top 1000, because no one song is as popular as songs were before Internet.

More on Girls in Tech China: Official web site, Twitter account

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